


The Leaving Whispers

by Winterling42



Series: Flesh and Blood and Dust [1]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Backstory, Gen, Minor Character Death, daemon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 04:08:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5275991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mini-recap of plot points from before/during the original Mad Max movie. Setting up for a retelling of Fury Road, now with more daemons!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Leaving Whispers

Max was sixteen when Epharia settled; old for such things, but the two of them had long since practiced throwing off the startled looks whenever her shape shifted. They were fourteen and stealing his dad’s car for joyrides, they were fifteen and knocking down bullies, and then Max turned sixteen and there she was, pink tongue lolling in the early November heat, fur the color of ocean sand.

He’d only laughed, and Epharia laughed with him, yipping in the summer air, because for the longest time they’d thought she’d turn out to be a Shepherd or a Collie, some long-legged dog with a pleasant face and pleasant manners. Instead his daemon pricked up the ears of a dingo, wild as they came, and she was perfect.

“This is who I am,” she said to him that night, after his father had finished shaking his head at them.

“This is who we are,” he’d agreed, one arm thrown carelessly over her shoulder.

***

Strange blood ran in the veins of Max Rockatansky, stranger than the combination of alleles that made giving it away so easy. A leaving ran in him and his daemon, as strong as in any full-blooded witch. His mother had ridden in and out of town on cloud pine, moonlight shining on her skin, and enchanted his father as surely as a spell. She would never stay, but she laughed and drank and spoke with the people in town like she cared about them. And she had, in her own way, loved the candle-flame lives of that town as much as she could. Just not enough to stay, not for the town and not for his dad and not for Max either.

His dad had tried to raise him well, as best he could in a world teetering on the edge of collapse. Max was a trouble-maker, and his daemon encouraged it, and they ran their engines fast and hard. They wanted more than anything to keep people safe. And as the world tumbled into chaos, all that their father could say was there was a chance, a _good_ chance, that Max had inherited a witch's magic.

It didn't matter – the leaving ran in him, strong and strange as witch’s blood, and Max had his bags packed almost as soon as Epharia settled. She was wild as his magic, and they were both more and less than the hero their father wanted them to be. They rode under the half-abandoned Halls of Justice, and demanded a job, and the cops all laughed at him, and then they gave him a car and a law and a purpose. Max and Epharia, hell on wheels, still looking out for the people they could, still trying to hold the world together with his bare hands. 

Even then, with a righteous cause laying rubber on the road beneath them, Epharia made sure to whisper into Jessie's ear that they were bound to leave one day. Jessie who he loved more than sky, and earth, and cars. Jessie who he would have died for, Jessie with her tiny marmoset daemon perched on her shoulder, who had pulled a gun on Max the first day they met. For her sake as much as theirs, Epharia lay with her head between her paws and told the love of their life that a leaving ran in them, strong as blood and treacherous with love.

It was only after Jessie's death, the  _killing_ that took her and their son away, that the first ghosts appeared. Sometimes they were furious, even then, even before Max tried to drain the last dregs of empathy from his veins. Sometimes they were welcoming, sometimes they led him to friendly places or caches of food and water. How much of their presence was his deranged mind, and how much was his witch’s blood? Max never met anyone who could answer, or if they could, he did not trust them enough to ask. 

By that time he knew they'd have a witch’s life span, and they had the heartache of knowing exactly what was lost from the years Before. (Before what, before which disaster struck? They all came at once, dominoes toppling into violence.) Max and Epharia weren't the type to count and dwell on that loss, but they remembered it anyway. The world’s death was carved into their heart. 

They lived so long, and it felt like a curse. Good intentions were left by the wayside of survival, but some things are harder to break than habits. It was not heroism that made Epharia back down from a fight if she knew the scrapper was starving. It was not heroism that pulled them down roads that would have been easier to just pass by, to help those that needed it. There was always going to be a price to be paid, to be stripped down to their deepest parts and to find those parts _good_. Being good in the Wasteland hurt.


End file.
